Booklet blister package and its manufacturing method

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are a booklet blister package and its manufacturing method, in which a description is seal-attached to the blister package on a side of the lid foil. By the package and method, a user can safely use contents in the package, and the manufacturing cost of the package can be reduced. The method comprises the steps of: putting contents in the blister cavity formed on the base film; sealing a lid foil to the base film in such a manner as that the contents are filled between the base film and the lid foil; supplying a description from a description feeding roll and locating the description on the lid foil; selectively seal-attaching the description onto one edge of blister package on a side of the lid foil; and punching predetermined portions of the blister package sealed description, so as to produce a booklet blister package.

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The present invention relates to a blister package and its manufacturing method, and more particularly to a booklet blister package and its manufacturing method, in which a description is seal-attached to a blister package on the lid foil side.

BACKGROUND ART

[0002] As generally known in the art, a blister package or a press-through pack (PTP) is a pack formed of materials such as a synthetic resin film or an aluminum foil, for automatically packing various contents such as commodities, health food, medical supplies including tablets and capsules. In manufacturing the conventional blister package, after contents are put inside a blister cavity of a base film, a lid foil is covered on and sealed to the base film, and punched, so that the contents are packed. More detailed description will be given below.

[0003] As shown in FIGS. 1 to 3, a conventional blister package is manufactured by a process including the following six steps. In the first step (S1), a roll is supplied in a first feeding roller 2, on which a base film 1 made from a synthetic resin film or an aluminum film into a forming station 3. In the second step (S2), a plurality of blister cavity 4, which respectively have a predetermined dimension, are formed on the base film 1, which has been supplied into the forming station 3 from the first step (S1), by means of suction force or air blowing in the forming station 3. In the third step (S3), contents 6 are supplied into the blister cavity 4 from a hopper 5. In the fourth step (S4), a lid foil 7 may be supplied onto the base film 1 in the sealing station. In the fifth step (S5), sealed portions of the base film 1 and the lid foil 7 are cooled down by a proper temperature and perforated at a proper intervals. In the sixth step (S6), the sealed base film 1 and the lid foil 7 are punched in such a manner as that they can be divided into units, each of which contains a predetermined number of the contents 6. Through step S6, a blister package 9 is completed.

[0004] The above steps S1 to S6 are controlled by a control system (not shown), and the blister cavity 4 made in step S2 are shape formed correspondingly to the contents 6 by means of vacuum suction force or air blowing. The contents 6 may be small articles, tablets, and capsules. When the contents 6 are fed onto the base film 1 formed in blister cavity 4, the contents 6 are put inside of the blister cavity 4 one content in blister cavity 4 by the operation of a contents feeding system 10.

[0005] Further, the lid foil 7 in step S4 is an aluminum foil, which was wound and loaded on the second feeding roller 8 after print a predetermined design on one surface or both surfaces of the aluminum foil by a print 11. The Sealing of the lid foil 7 is carried out by an operation of sealing station 12.

[0006] Further, the cooling operation in step S5 is carried out by a cooling station 13, and perforating operation after cooling is carried out by an operation of perforating station 14. The punching in step S6 after perforation is carried out by a punching station 15. Waste pieces cut out after the punching station 15 is transferred to a spool 16 and then reused or wasted. The blister package 9, which is punched out and not transferred to the spool 16, is transferred to a collating apparatus and packed again in a carton 17.

[0007] When the blister package 9 is packed again in the carton 17, a proper number of blister package 9 are put in the carton 17 together with a description (not shown) describing details of the contents packed in blister package 9 such as a contents' name, a lot number, an expiry date, a manufacturer, and efficacy of contents packed in the blister package 9, so that a user can refer to the description.

[0008] However, since the booklet description is packed in the carton 17 separately from the blister package bodies 9 itself, the booklet description may be easily lost after the carton 17 is opened. When the description and/or the carton 17 itself is lost, the description described details of contents packed in the blister package 9 cannot be referred, so that the contents 6 of the blister package 9 may be wrong medicated or cannot be done dosage.

[0009] Meanwhile, outside of the lid foil 7 may be printed which required a minimize description of the contents 6 identified even when the booklet or the carton 17 is lost. However, even in this case, there is a limitation in expressing the specific design and it is difficult to express a detail description of contents on a lid foil 7 of the contents 6 enough to enable a user to understand. Moreover, when each blister package 9 is packed with a description in the carton 17 in order to overcome the above shortcoming, the manufacturing cost of the blister package 9 is increased.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

[0010] Accordingly, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems occurring in the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a booklet blister package and its manufacturing method, by which a user can use contents in the booklet blister package with safety and the manufacturing cost of the blister package can be reduced.

[0011] In order to accomplish this object, there is provided a method of manufacturing a booklet blister package, the method comprising the steps of: putting contents in the blister cavity formed on the base film; sealing a lid foil to the base film in such a manner as that the contents are filled between the base film and the lid foil; supplying a description from a description feeding roll and locating the description on the lid foil; selectively seal-attaching the description onto one edge of blister package on a side of the lid foil; and punching predetermined portions of the blister package sealed description, so as to produce a booklet blister package.

[0012] In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a booklet blister package comprising: a base film, on which formed blister cavity and a lid foil partially sealed to each other so as to form a sealed space between the base film and the lid foil; contents filled in the blister cavity formed on the base film and sealed by the lid foil so as to complete package; and a booklet type description containing necessary details seal-attached onto the blister by selectively sealing.

[0013] Preferably, the description comprises pages, which are multi-use resealing glue lacquered on the description papers so as to open and close description from blister package many times.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0014] The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be more apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

[0015]FIG. 1 is a schematic constructional view illustrating a conventional line for manufacturing a blister package;

[0016]FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a conventional method of manufacturing a blister package;

[0017]FIG. 3 is a side sectional view of a conventional blister package;

[0018]FIG. 4 is a schematic constructional view illustrating a line for manufacturing a booklet blister package according to the present invention;

[0019]FIG. 5 is a flow chart of a method of manufacturing a booklet blister package according to the present invention;

[0020] FIGS. 6 to 8 are side sectional views of a booklet blister package according to the present invention; and

[0021]FIG. 9 is plane and side views of a description sealed to the booklet blister package according to the present invention.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

[0022] Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0023] As shown in FIGS. 4 to 9, a blister package having a booklet according to the present invention is manufactured according to the following process. In this case, contents 6 are packed in a formed base film 1 made from materials such as synthetic resin film or aluminum film, and then a lid foil 7 made from aluminum foil is sealed to the formed base film 1 in such a manner as that the contents 6 are filled in the formed cavity on the base film 1 and covered by the lid foil 7, so that the blister package without the booklet is manufactured. Then, in a putting step (SS1), a roll of a description 20 is supplied from a description roller 21 to be located on the lid foil 7. In description seal-attachment step (SS2) after the description 20 is located on the lid foil 7, a part of the description 20 is seal-attached to a part of the blister package on lid foil 7 side. In a finishing step (SS3), after a part of the description 20 is seal-attached to a side part of the lid foil of blister package as described above, the completion by sealing both blister package and description are punched along a specific line, so that a booklet blister package 22 is manufactured.

[0024] In the above process, the contents 6 are supplied on the base film 1 formed blister cavity and the lid foil 7 is sealed to the base film 1 by the operations of a sealing station 12. The forming station 3 utilizes suction force or air blowing for forming blister cavity 4 at predetermined portions of the base film 1 supplied from a roll of first feeding roller 2, and the contents feeding station 10 fills the contents 6 supplied from a hopper 5 into the blister cavity 4. The sealing station 12 seals the lid foil 7 supplied from a second feeding roller 8 with the base film 1 by means of a sealing method such as a hot pressing.

[0025] An on-line printer 11 is optionally provided after the second feeding roller 8, so as to print a specific design or description on the lid foil 7. After the lid foil 7 is sealed to the base film 1, and the base film 1 and the lid foil 7 are intermittently cut to form perforated with predetermined intervals while they pass through a cooling station 13 and a perforating station 14.

[0026] The description 20 contains necessary details including a name, a lot number, an expiry date, a manufacturer, and efficacy of the contents packed in the blister package 22, so that a user can refer to the necessary details. The necessary details may be printed on one surface or both surfaces of the description 20, and the description 20 can be smoothly opened and closed. The description 20 may be manufactured by putting multiple sheets together, so that the description 20 has multiple sheets. In this case, also, they can be easily opened. In this case, a permanent sealing part 23 is formed at a part ‘a’ of each sheet and is permanently sealed to a side part of the lid foil 7, and another predetermined part ‘b’ of each sheet is detachably sealed, to the lid foil 7 or another sheet in such a manner as that the part ‘b’ can be sealed again, so as to prevent the description 20 from being damaged of fluttering. Due to the permanently sealed portions a, the description 20 having multiple sheets can be an integrated booklet.

[0027] In the case where the description 20 is formed as a single sheet, the description 20 may be folded to have multiple pages. A part ‘a’ of a page located at an upper portion of the lid foil 7 is formed as the permanent sealing part 23 and permanently sealed thereto, and another part ‘b’ of the page on the lid foil 7 is detachably sealed to the lid foil 7 in such a manner as that the part ‘b’ can be sealed again, so that the part ‘b’ can be easily sealed and detached. Also, other pages located on the page may be also detachably sealed to the page in such a manner as that they can be sealed again, so that they can be easily stuck and detached.

[0028] Also, even in the case where the description 20 has multiple sheets, the sheets may be detachably sealed to each other as described above, so as to originally prevent the sheets of the description 20 from being separated from each other while being manufactured. Further, in this case, the description can be used more easily.

[0029] In the other hand, in order to identify if blister package is opened already, spot sealing may be applied on the opening part of description 20. That is, a predetermined portion of the last page of the description 20 which is locate next to lid foil is sealed by means of spot sealing which is a type of a permanent sealing method, so that whether the spot sealing is damaged or not to identified if the blister package is brand new or not. When the blister package is opened, the spot-sealed portion is damaged. After the spot-sealed portion is damaged, the pages can be detachably sealed to each other by means of the detachably sealed portions ‘b’.

[0030] The description 20 formed as described above is wound and supplied on the feeding stand of the description feeding roller 21. Further, the description feeding roller 21 is operated under the control of the control system, so that the description 20 is supplied onto the lid foil 7 and sealed thereto. When the description 20 is sealed, the permanent sealing part 23 located on one side of the lid foil 7 is permanently seal-attached to and predetermined portions of the description 20 are detachably sealed to the lid foil 7, so that the booklet blister package 22 provided with the description 20 is manufactured.

[0031] The description 20 has a size corresponding to that of a unit portion of the booklet blister package 22, which contains a predetermined number of the contents 6. Therefore, when the booklet blister package 22 is divided into each unit portion through the punching by a punching station 15, a unit package including the description 20, the base film 1, and the lid foil 7 with the same size is produced.

[0032] A spool 16 is arranged so as to wind waste punched on the punching station 15 in the following process. The booklet blister package 22, which is not sent to the spool 16, is discharged to a collating apparatus and packed in an individual box or a large carton.

[0033] Reference numerals 24, 25, and 26 respectively designate a print registration control sensor, an eye mark, and a description sealing station. Further, in FIG. 9, w designates the portions reused or wasted after being punched, plane indicates a plane view before the description 20 is wound, side indicates a side sectional view before the description 20 is wound, and P1 and P2 designate folding lines.

[0034] According to the present invention as described above, the contents 6 can be safely used and the manufacturing cost of the blister package can be reduced. In the method of the present invention, the contents 6 are put in the blister cavity 4 formed on the base film 1, the lid foil 7 is sealed to the base film 1 so as to pack the contents 6, and the description 20 is sealed to one edge of blister package on the side part of lid foil 7, so that the booklet blister package 22 can be manufactured in a simple manner.

[0035] The description 20 is supplied from the description feeding roller 21 to be seal-attached by the operation of the description sealing station 26. The description attachment portion 26 locates the permanent sealing part 23 of the description 20 on a portion of the lid foil 7. Another part ‘b’ of the permanent sealing part 23 is detachably sealed to the lid foil 7, so that the description 20 can be integrated with the lid foil 7 in a stable manner.

[0036] The booklet blister package 22, to which the description 20 is seal-attached, enables a user to constantly confirm necessary details of the contents 6 including efficacy, expiry date, manufacturer, and side effect, thereby ensuring the user to use the contents 6 with confidence and without any difficulties. According to the present invention, it is not really necessary to individually pack in the small carton because blister pack itself seal-attached with description, so that a cartoner machine for small carton package is not necessary. Furthermore, since the small unit packing and the cartoner machine are not necessary, the manufacturing cost is essentially prevented from being increased.

[0037] Especially, since a description is attached to each single blister unit, a user can definitely refer to the description before using the contents, and the booklet blister package 22 are prevented from being excessively sold or purchased, so that an economical dealing of the booklet blister package 22 can be carried out.

[0038] When a user opens the description 20 in order to refer to the description 20, the spot-sealing part is damaged. When each page is restored to its initial condition after the description 20 is referred, the reattachments portions formed on the sheets maintain the sheets of the description in a state in which the sheets are not fluttered.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

[0039] In the method according to the present invention as described above, after the contents are packed in the cavity formed on the base film and the lid foil is sealed to the base film so that the contents are packed in the cavity between the base film and the lid foil, the description is seal-attached to the lid foil, so that a user can safely use the contents of the blister package. Further, since an individual small-size packing is unnecessary after the booklet blister package is manufactured, the manufacturing cost of the package can be reduced.

[0040] Moreover, the description is permanently seal-attached onto the blister itself, so that the description is essentially prevented form being separated. Also, since portions of the description other than the permanent sealing station are detachably sealed in such a manner as that they can be stuck again, the description can be easily opened and closed.

[0041] Although a preferred embodiment of the present invention has been described for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims. 

1. A method of manufacturing a booklet blister package, the method comprising the steps of: (1) putting contents in the blister cavity formed on the base film; (2) sealing a lid foil to the base film in such a manner as that the contents are filled between the base film and the lid foil; (3) supplying a description from a description feeding roll and locating the description on the lid foil; (4) selectively seal-attaching the description onto one edge of blister package on a side of the lid foil; and (5) punching predetermined portions of the blister package seal-attached description, so as to produce a booklet blister package.
 2. A method of manufacturing a booklet blister package as claimed in claim 1, wherein, in step 4, the description is permanently seal-attached onto one edge of blister package on a side of the lid foil.
 3. A booklet blister package comprising: a base film, on which formed blister cavity and a lid foil partially sealed to each other so as to form a sealed space between the base film and the lid foil; contents filled in the blister cavity formed on the base film and sealed by the lid foil so as to complete package; and a booklet type description containing necessary details seal-attached onto the blister by selectively sealing.
 4. A booklet blister package as claimed in claim 3, wherein the description comprises pages, which are multi-use resealing glue lacquered on the description papers so as to open and close description from blister package many times.
 5. A booklet blister package as claimed in claim 3 or claim 4, wherein the description comprises a permanent sealing part on the blister package. 